


Even animals tend their own

by bluebells



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Consentacles, Featuring early concept Moira and That Costume, Fucking Machines, Genji Shimada/Jesse McCree (mentioned), How to care for your ninja, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of PTSD depression and self-harm, Multi, Power Dynamics, Research lab shenanigans, Team Dynamics, Threesome - F/M/M, Trans Genji Shimada, gentle humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 04:39:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14927306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: “If Ziegler finds out, I will never hear the end of it.”Gabriel’s worry deepens, but he nods along, glancing pointedly at the card scanner. “Understood. This stays between us.”Moira hesitates, keycard poised over the scanner. She twists back to him with a guilty look, and oh that’s another face for the record books in the life of Moira O’Deorain. “Unless Genji truly needs medical care, then of course--”“Moira,open the damn door.”





	Even animals tend their own

**Author's Note:**

> _I've got no strings_  
>  _To hold me down_  
>  _To make me fret_  
>  _Or make me frown_  
> 
> Many thanks to [Sy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sycophantism) and [Larien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowswing) for the beta.

It’s an agreement they forge after the third time Genji’s rage cuts a swathe through thousands of dollars of equipment in the Gibraltar watchpoint.

Gabriel sighs, arms weaving tightly across his chest as he takes in the carnage of the infirmary.

Huddled and kneeling in the far corner, his youngest agent trembles among the remains of Doctor Ziegler’s newest console. Angela had been gracious about the damage, waving away Gabriel’s comment over the insurance as she reached for her patient again.

Steam seethes from the vents at Genji’s shoulders, muscles shivering as they gleam with the sweat of his exertion. It’s always violent when he wakes to find himself in the infirmary. Blood wells from the ugly gash where his bared shoulder had collided with the broken edge of the console. If they aren’t careful, it will leave a scar.

Genji is not what his commander would call ‘careful’ with his body, despite how hard the young man has fought for it.

“Genji….” Angela’s touch brushes one of the cables emerging from his headpiece. “Don’t be afraid, it’s us. You’re in Gibraltar. You are with friends.”

Genji’s gaze flashes, a hunter’s red, and she flinches back.

Gabriel waits under the heat of that glare, watching the younger man narrow him in his sights. Whose bright idea was it to give this boy his vision back with eyes that lit up as well? Matters of stealth aside, it made Genji look like all those assassins of cautionary omnic lore.

_(“I wanted to be able to walk again.”)_

Genji doesn’t resist when Gabriel slowly lowers on his haunches, allowing his commander to take his hand and unload the ninja’s remaining shuriken.

“We need to handle this, Genji,” Gabriel murmurs, holding on and slipping those shuriken into one of the pouches of his utility belt. His thumb smooths over Genji’s knuckles as those sheathes close with a deadly _snick_.

Genji’s breaths huff loud within his mask, slowing as Gabriel studies his face and considers their options. PTSD is a delicate matter, but so is the state of their resources. This is getting expensive.

“Perhaps you finally think you made a mistake, sparing me,” Genji says, seething like a dare but Gabriel is in no mood for a fight.

“Don’t speak like that,” Angela firmly interjects, beating him to the punch. He smirks sidelong at the dark look on her face that brooks no disagreement. As much as Gabriel liked to boast that Blackwatch looked after its own, he’s glad it doesn’t preclude his agents from accessing care like Angela Ziegler.

“Don’t question my judgment,” he adds, curling a hand behind Genji’s neck.

At first, the muscles tense beneath his touch. Genji was still so skittish about tactility, but Gabriel suspects physical affection did not abound in the Shimada estate. Not that Genji himself was any stranger to physical comforts, if the intel about his previous life is a faithful record.

But being touched now, in this body, by strangers trying to heal him--Genji always flinches as though anticipating attack, body priming for fight or flight.

How can Gabriel blame him?

“We’re figuring this out, Genji. Deep breaths.”

He wants to tell Genji he can trust him. But Gabriel can only promise to do his best with what he has. He doesn’t want to think about where their trust might lead them.

He gently squeezes the nape under his hand. “We’re going to figure this out.”

///

Gabriel orders him to continue attending his therapy, for all the good it does.

Genji still decimates the shared training courses after each session without bothering to reset it for the next person. The damage is actually well contained, and no further story about Genji’s temper reaches him for long weeks.

Genji is isolating himself, which is nothing new. What is new is how well he’s hiding his symptoms. Gabriel worries how and where Genji is venting his depressive rage and frustration instead.

No news is not good news when it comes to his agents.

///

“Naw, I ain’t seen the ninja since this morning,” McCree shakes his head as his commander takes a seat across from him in the commissary.

Gabriel pulls a face at the knob of butter his gunslinger melts over his bowl of grits, nose wrinkling at the rising smell of boiled cornmeal.

“He crashed my time on the training course, made out like it was _his_ turn, but I know he was lying--the Captain kicked my butt for not checking off my session earlier this week. Said I was getting lazy.”

Gabriel snorts softly under his breath. Good to know his comrades are still overstepping.

McCree has stopped. Gazing off into the distant plane of memory, Jesse twirls the spoon. “Honest, I think he was just raring for a fight. Didn’t let up ‘til I had him pinned.”

Gabriel looks up from the study of McCree’s poor choice in nutrition, catching his eye. “And then what?”

The cowboy blinks at him, waiting a beat too long, and Gabriel sees right through the lie about to spill out. All this time and he still hasn’t taught the kid a pokerface.

Maybe half the issue is how Gabriel still called them kids in his head. They’re men now: messy, hapless and deadly men at his disposal, but adults all the same.

“Then he stopped, I let him up and he stormed the hell out.” McCree concludes, effectively halting the progress of that interrogation by shoveling that awful gruel into his mouth.

Gabriel raises an eyebrow. He has just enough patience to play along, but not to push the point. “Right. I’ll just keep an eye out.” He rises and takes a moment to appreciate the spectacle of McCree’s suspiciously ravenous hunger. “Don’t hurt yourself, Jesse. That stuff is hot.”

McCree garbles some reply in the affirmative as Gabriel stalks off to continue the search. Or maybe that noise meant ‘affronted’. They sound the same to him these days.

///

Genji has been grounded until his commander deems him fit for duty. Gabriel is not giving the green light without the okay from Genji’s doctors and therapists, and Genji stopped appearing for all appointments a week ago.

Unfortunately, when Genji chooses to, he can be almost impossible to pin down. There’s a reason Gabriel recruited him, but even with Athena’s help, by the time he acts on her reported sightings, Genji is long gone each time. The ninja lives as a ghost on base; he can never reliably be found in his quarters, the training rooms, or in the commissary when Gabriel anticipates finding him.

 _It’s fine_ , he tells Jack at their command briefings. As long as Genji isn’t hurting anyone or destroying any more property, they’re buying time. Genji is going to be fine. They’re going to help him. They _are_ helping him.

Jack and Ana exchange doubtful looks, Ana’s expression tinged with sincere concern. The mother in her aches to see the young man in pain.

When the ninja finally does turn up, Gabriel does not expect the news to bring him to Moira’s labs.

The research scientist is pacing the empty corridor outside the lab when he arrives. Her skin is noticeably paler than usual, she looks harried, eyes bright, the dark sleeves of her button-down are rolled up to her elbows: ready to do work.

Or her work was interrupted.

Gabriel nods to the steel door behind her. The red-lit panel tells him it is locked. “He in there?”

Moira nods but her dark look stops him from storming through with his command override. “He is _not_ well, Gabriel.”

He snorts softly under his breath. Understatement of the decade.

Wait. Did she mean--?

He steps in, searching her face urgently. “Is he hurt?”

“No. Not from me. But… I scanned his biometrics after he broke in overnight,” Moira continues, expression twisting to disgust of the door in its failure to protect her sanctum from outsiders. She rolls a small, black rectangle of a device between her palms. “I think he's been hurting himself. Several circuit breakers in his body have been overloaded. Nerve interfaces are repairing themselves. Nothing in my lab could have produced the necessary charge, but I don't think he knew that. The damage looks days old, at least.”

Gabriel takes in this new information carefully. He had hoped he was wrong. The confirmation makes his chest tighten with guilt. He swallows moisture down the dry constriction of his throat, and nods just so his colleague will know he's listening.

“My precautions took effect,” Moira says, “But he circumvented… most of them. I found him on the table this morning, I think he’s been stuck for a while.”

Gabriel chooses not to comment on the revelation his top scientist booby traps her lab. It sounds reasonable.

“What do you mean ‘stuck’?”

Moira’s face abruptly flushes with colour, gaze darting to the door as she turns away from him. One arm crosses her body defensively to clutch at her elbow. Gabriel stares. He has never seen the woman blush.

Her voice is tight and there is no mistaking the embarrassment as she reaches for her keycard to swipe them in. “If Ziegler finds out, I will never hear the end of it.”

Gabriel’s worry deepens, but he nods along, glancing pointedly at the card scanner. “Understood. This stays between us.”

Moira hesitates, keycard poised over the scanner. She twists back to him with a guilty look, and oh that’s another face for the record books in the life of Moira O’Deorain. “Unless Genji truly needs medical care, then of course--”

“Moira, _open the damn door.”_

Gabriel isn’t sure what he’s expecting and at first he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing, because he scans the large research space first for blood spatter and finds none. Broken, smoking equipment: none.

A gentle, mechanical whir of noise draws his attention to the centre of Moira's lab where a bright spotlight encircles his ninja prone on one of the high, steel tables.

Genji is curled away from them on his side, which provides an unfortunately unhindered view of his body-length shiver. He is wearing one of their standard issue hoodies, but it's fallen to tangle around his elbows as he squirms. The muscles of his shoulders clench, and Gabriel suspects he's grasping at the table's edge for purchase.

It could have something to do with the large, red cable thrusting in between his thighs.

Gabriel stares as Genji rocks on the table. The shocked silence is broken by the assassin's soft, gasping whimpers, and Gabriel's ears ring with the generously slick sound of Genji being worked open by that intrusion, the cable whirring in its slow, ceaseless rhythm. Importantly and of interest, Gabriel does not hear pain or distress in his agent's voice.

It's an assessment of milliseconds as he follows the thick line of that strange, tentacle-like mechanism to a familiar looking pack that has bolted itself to the leg of the table supporting Genji's weight.

“Hey,” Gabriel looks to the scientist at his shoulder. He nods at the pack. “Didn't I tell you to destroy that?”

Moira scowls to cover her embarrassment. “It was on my list. It's been a busy year.”

Gabriel shakes his head, approaching the table as quietly as possible so as not to spook his agent. They have to be careful. He doesn't want Genji to get hurt. “That's one hell of a security measure, Moira. What exactly was your intent with this?”

Moira, for her part, doesn't care for quiet when someone insults her work. She storms right past him, inserting herself as if to protect it from her commander. “It's a prototype! It wasn't meant to do… this. It seeks out energy.”

The table creaks with a whine of metal hinges as Genji startles, twisting to search over his shoulder. His eyes widen when they find Gabriel.

“C-commander….” Genji shrinks on himself, eyes darting between his company. His face darkens and he glowers at Moira with a snarl, “You said you wouldn't call him.”

“I lied,” Moira boasts, loud and boisterous. “You broke in. You forfeit rights.”

Genji relents, his shoulders going lax as the fight leaves him. His brow pinches and his eyes, always so expressive above that mask, soften with hurt. “Said you'd help me.”

Moira thrusts the small rectangular device at him. "I turned it down, didn't I? Cleaned you up after I found you a trembling, stupid wreck--”

Gabriel clears his throat loudly. “Why is that _thing_ still on?”

Genji and Moira exchange a quiet look.

“That's a question for his therapist,” Moira's voice lightens with its customary snide humour.

“She--” Genji swallows to clear his throat when his voice cracks, hitching on the inward thrust that Gabriel professionally ignores like a goddamn professional. “Sh-she's helping me.”

 _Really_? Gabriel wants to ask. He is careful to keep his expression neutral and gives himself permission to take in the length of Genji splayed open on the table, of Moira challenging him with hands on her hips, awaiting his judgement. Gabriel has to suppress a wince. The cable is as thick as his arm.

Well, this is Blackwatch. It’s not the strangest thing that's ever happened. And Moira made the right call, even if she reached out to excuse herself of responsibility rather than because she suffered an impulse to do the right thing.

“So, it was meant to collect and store energy, right?” Gabriel watches his assassin writhe and reach down to weakly grasp at the cable driving into him, frothing white around its girth. Was that thing milking his agent? “That's putting it broadly.”

Moira glares at him, her scowl almost petulant. “And it binds intruders!”

They both glance at the second arm of cable that had wound around Genji's waist and pinned a thigh high against his side, bent at the knee to open him wide.

Moira can report success on that binding.

“Weren’t there claws at the end…?”

The scientist shakes her head, waving off her commander’s concern. “They were a work and health hazard, I removed them a long time ago. I’ll find another use for them.”

Gabriel arches an eyebrow at her. Of course she will. Rounding the table, he bends before his agent, bringing them eye-to-eye. Genji's eyes lock on his when Gabriel cups the back of his neck, gently pinching the tight tendons at the base of his skull.

“Hey,” he murmurs, inflecting what he hopes will carry as warmth. “This really help you?”

Genji doesn’t answer so much in words. His breaths are harsh on the inside of his mask and, at last, he nods tightly.

Gabriel bites the inside of his cheek, hand squeezing gently as his thoughts race. He searches the tightness of Genji’s expression, flushed and strained with colour. Gabriel’s chest twinges in sympathy and… a familiar instinct to protect. “Want me to get anything? You need water? Something to eat?”

Genji grunts, the sound tapering off into a deep groan within his chest, and his hips jerk. Eyes squeezing shut, his hand flies up to clasp at Gabriel’s wrist. His strength is desperate, breaths coming fast.

Gabriel recognises the tension in his body language, even held open and pinned as it is. Genji’s body wants to coil on itself, to hoard the sensations that are spiralling into ecstasy. Gabriel kneads the tendons beneath his hand as Genji’s chin drops to his chest and he braces himself, knuckles of his free hand white as he clutches to the table’s edge.

“We got you,” Gabriel murmurs, scanning the length of Genji’s body as he keeps up the massage, anything to reassure the ninja and ease that tortured knit of his brow. “It’s okay, Genji, we got you.”

And he doesn’t think about how annoyed Moira will be to be included in that collective ‘we’, but she is the one with the remote for the invention fucking her colleague into new configurations. They might have to reset the joints of Genji’s hips after this.

Something about that idea makes Gabriel's blood simmer with arousal. He clenches his jaw and stamps down on the mental image of Genji splaying on his back, trying to take in a length so wide, the only way to fit is to unbolt his hips.

Genji needs his commander, not a lover, and Gabriel has not been invited here as the latter.

But it's difficult to remember when Genji turns his face into Gabriel’s hold. The cool steel of his mask kisses the skin of Gabriel’s inner wrist. Going out on a limb, Gabriel threads his free hand into Genji’s hair, closing it into a slow fist. He squeezes, tugging those thick tufts of hair in a slow massage. He is careful to avoid the sockets where cables emerge from back of Genji’s reinforced skull.

A deep gasp shudders through Genji the moment that hand sinks into his hair. His breath hitches, body locking tight. Gabriel cradles his head as he spasms, hears him swear behind the mask, a tight hiss of sound.

 _Good boy,_ Gabriel wants to praise him, stroke hands down his body and coax him to let it out, let go, _trust me._ Genji is a goddamn work of art and when he’s lost in orgasm like this, he’s _breathtaking._

“Yes, Genji,” he breathes out, drinking in the helplessness of Genji’s expression, the jerk and shove of his hips as he clenches down on that huge cable.

It takes a force of effort resisting the instinct to lean in and soothe the skin where Genji is spread so wide. Gabriel’s mouth waters, tongue swelling and he bites down to stop himself. Genji is not an open offering, Gabriel is not invited, no matter how much he wants to lap up the white mess foaming around the ninja’s hole or swallow down his cock until Genji is keening for mercy.

Genji whimpers when his leg is lowered. Gabriel leans back to watch, impressed by the length of the cable that withdraws before a tapered head emerges, glistening wet. A _schlick_ of what must be lubricant and cum spills free, coating his thighs and pooling beneath him on the table. There’s no way Genji produced all of that by himself.

Gabriel gives Moira a significant look as that prehensile cable retreats to its pack, but she has already disappeared to the other end of the lab in search of something to help clean up their colleague. There is no doubt how she’s deliberately repurposed her invention, but Gabriel is going to let it slide. At least she didn’t waste the money that went into that device.

Nudging his shoulder, Gabriel gentles Genji to roll onto his back but the ninja resists with a soft noise of protest and holds tight to Gabriel’s hands. His body curls on itself, legs drawing up beneath him. He avoids his commander’s eyes and that’s as worrying as the hold that won’t release him.

Gabriel frowns. “You cold?” A glance around their sterile environment unsurprisingly does not yield anything of help. “Moira--”

The scientist reappears at the other side of the table and shakes her tall, white lab coat free with a clap of sound. Genji startles, his expression uncomprehending until the coat touches his shoulders and settles the length of his body in a makeshift blanket. Gabriel feels the tension release from Genji under his hands.

“You can keep this one,” Moira tells him, going to the end of the table. She drops a box of sanitary wipes and taps the assassin’s ankle. “Come on, let’s clean you up.”

There’s something comforting in the clinical and disassociated nature of Moira’s bedside manner. Moira does this so they can move on. When Angela patches them up, Gabriel has experienced that sting of guilt for needing her help because she makes no secret of the fact she cares for each of them. There’s a time for that, but right now, Gabriel understands why Genji came to Moira instead.

He’s also pretty sure Angela doesn’t have anything like this in her infirmary. Angela is probably the last person any of them would ask for help with something like this.

Blackwatch look after their own.

As Moira eases Genji’s thighs apart, hands gentle but perfunctory, Gabriel tilts the man’s head back. Genji’s eyelids are heavy, blissed out and exhausted. How long has he been on this table? Gabriel hasn’t seen the red glow of his eyes this muted since they were first installed. He runs his thumb along the edge of the mask hiding Genji’s cheekbone.

They should have done this a long time ago.

“From now on, you ask us, all right?” Gabriel keeps his voice low and quiet, waiting until those glazed eyes fix on him. Genji still hangs on to his wrists as Gabriel cups his face in both hands. “Any time. We’re gonna help you. I know you’ll need some things different. I don’t mind if it hurts. But we gotta take care of you. I’m gonna get you some water.” He strokes the sweat-matted fringe back from Genji’s eyes and wishes he could convince the other man to remove that mask. Baby steps. “Then we’re gonna get some food in you. Maybe I’ll get Jesse to bring some. Would you like that?”

The fingers around his wrist curl gently. Genji’s nod is weak, but the sound is affirmative.

Gabriel rather likes Genji like this.

He hushes the soft noises of protest when he takes one of his hands back, reaching for the comms clipped to the shoulder of his vest. “Hey, Jesse,” he greets, watching Genji’s soft, slow blink. He smiles, pushing the hair back from that beautiful face. “Got a job for you.”


End file.
